


A Lack Of

by Kashi



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6175000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kashi/pseuds/Kashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new city can be an escape or a beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lack Of

Beijing washes over Minseok, all noise, dust and people - a lot of people. He has precise instructions for his uncle’s (on his mother’s side, twice removed) address but it’s late by the time he reaches the flat. He spends most of the next two hours profusely apologising for waking up the family of five, uncomfortably aware that they are giving him the best room in their cramped apartment.

Minseok doesn’t sleep well that night.

He’s up at dawn but it’s another excruciating two hours before anyone else wakes up, when he can finally go outside.

Minseok’s classes at the University did not start for another day and besides he knew no one there. He wanders around the streets, with a vague ill defined plan of delaying his return to the house but the heat is oppressive. It makes everything blur around him. By mid day, he can’t take it anymore and he wanders into a dingy side street restaurant, mainly because it looks cheap.

Coming in from the sunlight, the dark interiors of the restaurant momentarily blind him. He blinks owlishly, and realizes it’s more a bar than a restaurant but he makes his way to a table which is closest to the ancient table fan whirring away in the corner.

The menu card is old, bearing testament to all the changes since, in red permanent marker. Minseok’s mandarin is very good; one of the main reasons why he’d won the scholarship but he hates the fact that he has to translate the everyday mundane.

“what would you like?”

“I…” Minseok looks up from the menu card at the waiter, and finds he has to reorder his thoughts before he can speak. Names, verbs and syllables all mangle together in his head. He clears his throat, intent on trying again but the waiter gets there before him.

“You won’t find anything from the menu here,” he says, his Korean though not native still clear. “That thing hasn’t been changed in ten years.”  


* * *

 

Luhan, the Korean speaking waiter, is good as his word and his place turns out to be less than five minutes away from the restaurant. That’s five minutes involving a four minute trek uphill and seven flights of steps.

Still Luhan does have ice cold beer unlike the piss poor thing, he assures Minseok, they would have got at the bar and while the apartment is even tinier than his uncle’s there are only the two of them.

“do you have a roommate?” Minseok asks. He’s gone from sitting on the couch to almost lying on it; his feet, manners be damned, stretched out over the couch. The beer bottle is blessedly chilled in his hand and he grips it tighter, willing some of the cold to seep into his skin. It’s only his second bottle but his first time drinking and he imagines that he feels slightly light headed. Still, it’s the first time since he left his home, he feels he can breathe.

“why? do you think I need one?” Luhan has somehow managed to fold himself into the opposite end of the threadbare couch.

“you look like a student.” Minseok says. It’s better than saying ‘dirt poor’.

“How old do you think I am?” Luhan asks, stretching back, the small of his back moulding and dipping over the arm of the couch and his head lying over the edge.  Minseok can see the ripples in his outstretched throat as he spoke.

“younger than me,” Minseok says confidently.

“how old are you?”

“twenty,” Minseok adds the two years just to make sure Luhan was younger.

“Liar,” Luhan moves languidly, taking his time to push himself on to his knees on the couch. He sways slightly and Minseok puts a hand out to steady him but Luhan seems to know what he’s doing because he leans right in and kisses Minseok.

The kiss is unhurried and natural and Minseok isn’t really surprised. He’d wanted it the moment, he’d looked up from that ancient menu card and seen Luhan smiling at him.  No, the only thing surprising was that he had been reckless enough to accept the all too obvious invitation. It was the heat, he thought as Luhan licked obscenely up his mouth. The heat made everything blur.

When they break apart, Luhan laughs. Minseok is glad to notice he sounds nearly as breathless as Minseok feels.

 

* * *

 

The next morning is terrible. He loses his way to each one of his classes and his brain takes too long to translate. More than once he thinks of politely excusing himself from class and running the hell away.

Moving into Luhan’s place, later that day, is surprisingly stress free. His relatives are genuinely pleased to meet the nice Korean speaking Chinese friend that Minseok brings around to introduce as his - new flat mate. It had been Luhan’s idea, and as promised he does behave admirably. Lies, tumble out of his mouth as easily as his smile.

“Surely you didn’t have to lay it so thick.”  Minseok pants. He is heaving his one big suitcase uphill while Luhan who was a little ahead of him stops every now and then to watch his progress.

”And tell them, that their precious first son of the family to go to college is living with a high school dropout, paying for the room by doing sexual favours?”

When Minseok glares, Luhan smiles cheekily, skips down the slope, on to Minseok.

“get off of me,” Minseok splutters, but Luhan wraps him in a bear hug and  says in mock gravity,

“Don’t be such a grouch, Baozi. Of course, I know all your sexual favours are a hundred percent free. We’ll just have to find some other way for you to pay me back.”

He laughs and goes traipsing up the hill again and Minseok annoyed to find himself blushing can only shout after him,

“Stop calling me Baozi!”

**Author's Note:**

> One Shot, as of now. I actually do have a vague idea where this could go. Like I know who owns that shady restaurant and I know what Luhan being a seemingly goal less dropout is all about. it's all very bittersweet in my head. But I dunno if I should continue? Any feedback is appreciated!


End file.
